I love the smell of data in the morning!
Interesting and surprising statistics about digital media and devices. Compiled & curated by Dan Calladine, Aegis Media - dan.calladine@aemedia.com -
All views expressed are my own. Please email me if you have any queries, amendments or suggestions. Follow me on twitter - I'm @dancall

Wednesday, 21 December 2016

"Even as Uber Technologies Inc. exited China, the company's financial loss has remained eye-popping. In the first nine months of this year, the ride-hailing company lost significantly more than $2.2 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. In the third quarter, Uber lost more than $800 million, not including its Chinese operation.
At the same time, the company's revenue has continued to grow even after leaving the world's most populous country. Uber generated about $3.76 billion in net revenue in the first nine months of 2016 and is on track to exceed $5.5 billion this year, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information is private."

"A lot has changed this year, but the Instagram community and the diversity of expression it provides has remained consistent. And you now have more ways to share than ever before with Instagram Stories, live video and disappearing photos and videos in Direct. Additionally, with updated safety tools that give you more control over comments and other parts of your experience, we’re working to make Instagram safer than ever for connection and self-expression."

Friday, 16 December 2016

This year it seemed to me that lots of what was happening and about to happen were comebacks - things that had been heralded a few years ago, but were finally hitting the mainstream, the most obvious being Augmented Reality, but also Live Video (remember webcams?), Web TV and more, which can all be said to have followed the Gartner Hype Cycle, and are now getting to the 'mainstream' stage.

& in the spirit of accountability, I also look at what happened to last year's trends. enjoy!

Monday, 12 December 2016

"Apple has released the latest numbers for the music subscription service Apple Music. In the 18 months since the service was launched, the tech giant reveals that it has just crossed the 20 million paid subscribers mark. It last reported 17 million subscribers in September, marking a 15 percent jump in three months."
Source: Hollywood Reporter, 6th December 2016

"On behalf of its clients, ad giant WPP is spending about $70 million (£56 million) with Snapchat, the company's chief executive Martin Sorrell said on Tuesday at the UBS Media and Communications Conference, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The figure is just a pinch of the money it spends on other digital platforms — in October Sorrell said WPP will spend $5 billion (£4 billion) with Google this year, up from $4 billion (£3.2 billion) in 2015. That year the company spent $1 billion (£800 million) with Facebook."

"According to research released today by Google and Teads, the video tech company, mobile publishers using Google's AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) video inventory perform better than those that stick with the traditional mobile web.
Results showed publishers using AMP, an open-source Google initiative, saw clickthrough rates increase by 200 percent, completion rates increase by 15 percent and ad performance increase 18 percent. Nearly 100 publishers are now using AMP including Mashable, Rodale, L'Express and Trinity Mirror.
In a blog post detailing the findings, Eric Shih, global svp of business development at Teads, said videos by brands and publishers don't just need to be fast, they also should "engage, educate and entertain."
"If you've ever waited impatiently for your favorite site to load only to watch an annoying pop-up take over your smartphone screen, you can probably understand why user engagement decreases," Shih wrote. "That type of experience doesn't unlock the full potential of video advertising."
This year, Google and Facebook have both made big pushes to speed up the web by cutting down on ad sizes and load times. In September, a few months after Google launched its AMP program, Facebook announced it would start helping advertisers decrease load times while also potentially not delivering ads that were too big if a user's internet connection couldn't handle them."

"Netflix will remain the dominant force in Western European SVoD for the next five years, according to Digital TV Research. However, Amazon Video will provide a stiff challenge as the firm estimates that 15 Western European countries will offer Amazon Prime Video by end-2017.
Netflix’s share of Western European SVoD subscribers will fall from 51 per cent in 2015 to 47 per cent by 2021. However, Amazon’s share will grow from 14 per cent in 2015 to 21 per cent by 2021. So, these two companies control two-thirds of the region’s SVoD subs."

"The abandonment rate of smartwatches is 29 percent, and 30 percent for fitness trackers, because people do not find them useful, they get bored of them or they break, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc.
"Dropout from device usage is a serious problem for the industry," said Angela McIntyre, research director at Gartner. "The abandonment rate is quite high relative to the usage rate. To offer a compelling enough value proposition, the uses for wearable devices need to be distinct from what smartphones typically provide. Wearables makers need to engage users with incentives and gamification."
The 2016 Gartner Personal Technologies Study surveyed 9,592 online respondents from Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. between June and August 2016, to gain a better understanding of consumers' attitudes toward wearables, particularly their buying behavior for smartwatches, fitness trackers and virtual reality (VR) glasses.
According to the survey, smartwatch adoption is still in the early adopter stage (10 percent), while fitness trackers have reached early mainstream (19 percent). Only 8 percent of consumers have used VR glasses/head-mounted displays (excluding cardboard types)."
Source: Gartner, 7th December 2016

Wednesday, 23 November 2016

"The first episode of The Grand Tour has become the biggest premiere on Amazon Prime, according to the streaming site.
Although it hasn't published its audience figures, Amazon says it has overtaken The Man in The High Castle, with millions of streams in the US, UK, Germany, Austria and Japan.
"The guys are back, doing what they do best," says Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
"The chemistry between Jeremy, Richard and James is what makes The Grand Tour so entertaining."
Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May originally presented Top Gear on the BBC, before parting ways with the organisation.
As well as bringing record audiences, Amazon says the day The Grand Tour was released, new Prime membership sign-ups exceeded all previous days, with the exception of their promotional Prime Day."
Source: BBC News, 22nd November 2016

"The AdEx Benchmark H1 2016 study reveals that mobile was central to the growth of online advertising across all formats; mobile display grew by 61.3% and mobile search by 57.3%. Mobile display was particularly prominent in the CEE region where it experienced a growth of more than 100%. The CEE region helped to drive the overall growth with an increase of 16.2% whilst the more mature markets in Western Europe experienced a growth of 13.1%.
Display advertising growth continues to outpace search*; display grew by 18.2% and search by 13.3%. Display reached nearly €7bn in H1 2016 representing 37% of total online advertising whilst search accounts for 47%. Indeed, in Central and Eastern Europe display experienced a 27.1% growth, the highest of all formats, suggesting an improvement in targeting, formats and data strategies for brand advertising."
Source; Press release from IAB Europe, 23rd November 2016

"That’s another blockbuster in the books. The 2016 11.11 Global Shopping Festival just ended. Final GMV tally: RMB 120.7 billion ($17.8 billion). Not that anyone was counting. Alizila will publish highlights of the sale in an upcoming wrap-up story, so stay tuned."

Monday, 7 November 2016

"Third Quarter 2016 Operational Highlights
Daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 1.18 billion on average for September 2016, an increase of 17% year-over-year.
Mobile DAUs – Mobile DAUs were 1.09 billion on average for September 2016, an increase of 22% year-over-year.
Monthly active users (MAUs) – MAUs were 1.79 billion as of September 30, 2016, an increase of 16% year-over-year.
Mobile MAUs – Mobile MAUs were 1.66 billion as of September 30, 2016, an increase of 20% year-over-year.
Third Quarter 2016 Other Financial Highlights
Mobile advertising revenue – Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 84% of advertising revenue for the third quarter of 2016, up from approximately 78% of advertising revenue in the third quarter of 2015.
Capital expenditures – Capital expenditures for the third quarter of 2016 were $1.10 billion.
Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities – Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $26.14 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2016."
Source: Facebook's Q3 2016 earnings release, 2nd November 2016
Also - Facebook earnings charts here
Earlier - 1.7bn MAUs reported in Q2 - July 2016

"IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) announced today that digital advertising revenues in the United States for the first half of 2016 have reached an all-time high, scaling to $32.7 billion according to the latest IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report released by the industry trade group and prepared by PwC US. This represents a 19 percent increase over last year’s then record-setting half-year revenues of $27.5 billion.
In step with that accelerated growth, revenue from the second quarter of 2016 reached $16.9 billion, an 18 percent increase over the $14.3 billion from the same time period last year.
Other highlights from the 2016 Half-Year Report include:
Mobile revenue saw the largest year-over-year change, climbing to $15.5 billion, up 89% from $8.2 billion in HY 2015, representing 47% of total internet advertising revenue
Taking a deeper dive into mobile, video on smartphones and tablets saw strong triple-digit growth, reaching $1.6 billion in HY 2016, an impressive 178% rise from HY 2015
Mobile search took a significant uptick, realizing $7.4 billion in HY 2016, a 105% increase compared to $3.6 billion in HY 2015
Total digital video, including mobile and desktop, rose to $3.9 billion in HY 2016, up 51% from $2.6 billion in HY 2015
Total search, including mobile and desktop, accounts for half of all internet ad revenue, and hit $16.3 billion in HY 2016, a 19% hike over the $13.7 billion generated in HY 2015
Total social media revenues, including mobile and desktop, surged to $7 billion in HY 2016, a 57% rise compared to $4.4 billion in HY 2015
Of the sector verticals measured, the top three continue to amass nearly half of all ad spend (46%)—retail (21%), financial services (13%), and automotive (12%)
“These half-year revenues are a testament to the role of digital screens—especially mobile screens—in consumers’ increasingly connected lives,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB. “Marketers and brands clearly recognize the innate power of digital to offer immersive experiences and secure real-time engagement.”
“These numbers demonstrate the growing importance of mobile, showing us the increasing demand for digital video and search, available anytime, anywhere, in the palm of your hand,” said David Silverman, a partner at PwC US.
“Consumers’ appetite to enjoy media—in particular video and social media—on smartphones and tablets provides marketers with the opportunity to connect and interact with their customers while they are on the go, in a very personal environment,” said David Doty, Executive Vice President and CMO, IAB."

"Travis Kalanick says his drivers’ license is expired — though, of course he has to say that. But in Kalanick’s future, with a fleet of driverless Ubers shuttling people around, it might be that everyone’s drivers’ licenses will expire.
His company, Uber, could essentially be a replacement for owning a car for Kalanick, and also for the 40 million monthly active riders the company has. Kalanick revealed that number on stage at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit this year in San Francisco. Kalanick also said that drivers made somewhere between $1.5 billion and $2 billion last month. Those monthly active riders pay around $50 per month, he said."

"Amazon says customers are taking to Dash Buttons to quickly restock their favorite items, and now the company has added more than 60 new brands.
Amazon said Monday Dash Button orders are up five times over the last year. The company has added Bai, Cheez-It, Folgers, Fresh Kitty, Meow Mix, Milk Bone, PoopBags, Pop-Tarts, Powerade, Purrell Hand Sanitizing Wipes, ZonePerfect and others to its lineup of more than 200 buttons."

"When YouTube Red launched a year ago, the plan was for the service to grow into a competitor against the likes of Netflix and Hulu. Now, less than a year later, subscriber totals show that YouTube still has a long way to go before the public will accept paying a monthly fee for YouTube.
According to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation, YouTube Red had 1.5 million paying subscribers as of late summer, with another 1 million users signed up on a trial basis (and not paying the monthly fee). Those numbers underscore just how difficult it is to convince millions of people to pay for something they’ve had free access to for over a decade. They also reflect the interest level in YouTube Music, which launched last November and requires a Red subscription to take full advantage of.
There are some statistics in YouTube’s favor. YouTube Red has only rolled out in four countries so far — US, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand — which means the service isn’t available to all of YouTube’s over 1 billion monthly users. The service is outpacing the growth of video competitors like CBS All Access and Sling TV. And YouTube says Red subscribers are the heaviest users of YouTube. Creators featured in YouTube Red Originals see a significant boost in subscribers and watch times on their main channels. The company also noted that Red subscribers watch 75 percent more YouTube on their TVs than average users.
The numbers against YouTube: it’s the biggest video streaming service in the world and the biggest music streaming service in the world. As the leader in either of those categories, 1.5 million subscribers in the first year of a paid service isn’t great, and it’s especially not great when you’re the leader in both categories. Tidal grew faster than YouTube Red did in the first year after its relaunch, picking up 2.1 million subscribers. (To be fair, Tidal rolled out to more countries than YouTube Red did in its first year — but! — Tidal was / is a public relations disaster that most of the internet loves to hate.)
In a statement to The Verge, YouTube said it’s happy with the growth of Red, and is fully invested in the service. “We’re pleased with momentum behind YouTube Red and we’re seeing healthy growth of members each month,” a YouTube spokesperson said. “While we don't release or comment on speculative numbers, we’re seeing strong engagement of the service in the four countries we’ve launched, leading us to invest in more originals series and movies for 2017 and increased marketing of YouTube Music.”
By the end of 2016, YouTube will have released 20 Red Original series and movies, four of which have already been renewed. Going forward, it plans to add shows from Lionsgate and a pair of series produced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman."

Wednesday, 26 October 2016

"For the first time in 15 years Apple's revenues have declined, the latest earnings figures from the Silicon Valley giant show.
Financial details from Tim Cook's company show at the end of the 2016 fiscal year it earned $217 billion (£178bn).
While the year on year $217bn figure is more than most companies would dream of, it represented a nine percent drop from $233.7bn (£191bn) at the end of 2015.
The cause of the $16bn decline? A continued drop in iPhone sales. During the previous three months Apple sold 45.5 million iPhones, which was a decrease of 5 percent on the 48m handsets it sold during the same period last year.
Its overall revenue for the fourth quarter was $46.9bn (£38bn) and Apple also posted a quarterly net income of $9bn (£7.3bn).
Despite the slightly gloomy figures Apple has little to worry about going forward. The most recent quarter doesn't take into account most of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus reviews, which were released towards the end of the period. "“We’re thrilled with the customer response to iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus and Apple Watch Series 2, as well as the incredible momentum of our Services business, where revenue grew 24 percent to set another all-time record,” Tim Cook said in a statement."

"Alibaba is shaping and guiding Chinese consumer behavior and trends. We are also helping consumers enjoy greater convenience and a wider range of options in the ongoing consumption upgrade. We are popular among millennials, who view us as an inseparable part of their lives. More than 75% of our users are 35 years old or younger.
During fiscal year 2016, our China retail marketplaces reached a historical milestone when annual gross merchandise value transaction surpassed RMB 3 trillion, making Alibaba Group the largest retail ecosystem in the world. Our annual active buyers continued to grow, reaching 423 million as of March 31, 2016. Our extraordinary year-over-year growth in mobile transactions, which reached 73% for the quarter ended March 31, 2016, showcased the success of our transformation into mobile-first. Through the acquisition of Youku Tudou and brisk growth in Alitrip and Koubei, we have expanded our offerings beyond physical goods to include digital content and local services, which we believe will be the next wave of growth."
Source: Letter to shareholders from Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang. 13th October 2016

"Over the last two years, the Alibaba team has produced outstanding results. In fiscal year 2016, we continued to build out the world’s largest retail ecosystem. Gross merchandise volume transacted on our China retail platforms surpassed an unprecedented RMB 3 trillion. In the fiscal year prior to our IPO, mobile revenue accounted for a single-digit percentage of total revenue from our China retail marketplaces; in our most recent quarter, mobile contributed more than 75% of total revenue. Our mobile monetization rate now exceeds that of the desktop, making Alibaba Group the largest mobile commerce company in the world. We have more than 430 million annual active buyers, which means one out of every three individuals in China has made a purchase on our retail marketplaces. Additionally, our cloud computing business, digital media and entertainment businesses, and the strategic bets we have made on innovative, emerging technologies are demonstrating strong growth that we believe will be sustainable for years to come."

Thursday, 13 October 2016

"Instagram Stories is benefitting from the large active user base Instagram itself enjoys, and now has 100 million daily active viewers. That’s two-thirds of the daily active user population for Snapchat, which reported 150 million global active users across its entire platform in late September. Even with a built-in audience to build from, and prime real estate positioning at the very top of Instagram’s user interface, the rapid pace of its adoption is impressive.
The new stat comes from a Buzzfeed report that also reiterated the total of monthly active users across Instagram at a high of 500 million (a number it first released in June), halfway to that coveted 1 billion mark Facebook Messenger passed earlier this year."

Wednesday, 12 October 2016

"Driven by mobile, digital advertising continues to prove its worth to advertisers who increased spend 16.4%¹ in the first half of 2016 to £4.78 billion – the highest first half growth rate for two years.
· Overall 16.4% rise in digital spend is highest first half growth rate for two years
· Mobile spend up 56.1%
· Video the fastest growing ad format, up 67%
The PwC / Internet Advertising Bureau UK Digital Adspend report also shows the amount spent on mobile display ads (£802 million) overtook that of PC and tablet display (£762 million) for the first time. This significant development reflects the rapid growth of time spent on smartphones.
Total mobile ad spend, including search and classifieds, increased by 56.1% in the first half of 2016. Consequently, 36p in every £1 spent on digital advertising now goes to mobile, up from 4p just five years ago.
“Mobile use today is more akin to a computer than merely a phone, as people increasingly rely on them as their information, entertainment and communications hub,” said the IAB UK’s Chief Strategy Officer, Tim Elkington. “People now spend more time online on their mobile than they do on a computer. Consequently, marketers devote more ad spend to mobile as they increasingly cotton on to the fact that people essentially carry an ad platform with them wherever they are.”
Accompanying online YouGov consumer data shows that 82% of smartphone owners check their phone within an hour of waking up, while 86% of 18-34s do so within half an hour. For 1 in 5 of those looking at their phone soon after waking up, checking social media is the first thing they do, rising to 29% of 18-34s. The smartphone is now the primary source of news for 30% of owners, rising to 42% among 25-34s².
Video, social and native are fastest-growing formats
Spend on video ads overall grew 67% to hit £474 million during the front half of 2016. Driven by rising video, TV and film viewing on smartphones, mobile video spend alone grew 129%. Consequently, video accounts for 30% of all display advertising but 37% of mobile display.
Outstream and in-read video ads (those appearing anywhere on the page, not before video content) saw a massive 440% rise and now account for 40% of video spend, whilst ‘traditional’ video ads (which play before, during or after an online video) grew 17%.
Ad spend on social media sites grew 43% to £745 million, meaning nearly half (48%) of display spend now goes on social. Social media spend on mobile alone grew 64%, so mobile now accounts for 80% of spend allocated to social.
Content and native advertising spend – which includes ‘advertorials’ and ads in social media news feeds – increased 29% to £451 million.
Consumer goods are biggest display advertisers
Consumer goods brands – such as food, toiletries and clothing – spent the most on display ads (e.g. banners and video), responsible for 18.3% of spend, followed by travel & transport (16.4%) and automotive (11.7%).
Driven by mobile, which grew 61%, paid-for search overall grew 18.1% to £2.49bn – a 52% share of digital ad spend. Classifieds, including recruitment, property and automotive listings, grew 3.6% to £699 million (15% share).
“The phenomenal rise of mobile search reinforces the idea of mobile as the ever-present ad medium,” says Dan Bunyan, Senior Manager at PwC. “It means advertisers no longer have to wait to target people at specific ‘touchpoints’ during the day. Instead they can deliver highly relevant, localised ads with unprecedented immediacy, such as reacting to people reaching a specific place, looking for a particular product or even the weather changing.”"

Monday, 3 October 2016

"Facebook announced Tuesday that more than 4 million businesses worldwide are active advertisers on the social network, with more than 70 percent of them based outside of the U.S.
More than 60 million businesses globally are using Facebook pages."
Source; AdWeek, 27th September 2016
Earlier - 3m declared in March 2016

Thursday, 29 September 2016

"The first televised skirmish between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump broke the all-time TV audience record for a presidential debate, averaging 84 million viewers across a dozen ad-supported broadcast and cable networks and PBS.
Monday night's showdown between the former Secretary of State, U.S. Senator and First Lady and her opponent, the real estate mogul, steak wrangler and reality TV star, surpassed the 80.6 million viewers who tuned in for the lone debate between President Jimmy Carter and former California Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1980. That event aired on the three extant broadcast networks: ABC, CBS and NBC.
The total Nielsen turnout does not include viewers who streamed the debate online or watched from a bar, restaurant, hotel or other out-of-home venue. Also not included in the final debate tally was C-Span, which is not officially measured by Nielsen.
NBC boasted the largest debate audience, drawing 18.2 million viewers, or 22% of the overall viewership for the 99-minute event. ABC scared up the second-largest crowd, averaging 13.5 million viewers, while CBS took third with 12.1 million. Fox News Channel claimed the biggest debate crowd among the cable news outlets, drawing 11.4 million viewers, while its rival CNN averaged 9.94 million. MSNBC finished near the back of the pack with an average delivery of 4.91 million viewers.
NBC also won the night among the core news demographic, averaging 8.3 million adults 25 to 54 to CBS's 4.8 million and ABC's 4.75 million. CNN's coverage drew 4.51 million members of the demo, topping the much older-skewing Fox News Channel's 3.55 million and eclipsing MSNBC's average delivery of 1.59 million demographically apposite viewers.
As has been the case with every presidential debate since the first televised joust (Nixon-Kennedy, Sept. 26, 1960), Monday night's proceedings were uninterrupted by commercial messages. Pre- and post-debate ads on the Big Three broadcast networks went for as much as $250,000 per 30-second spot."
Source: AdAge, 27th September 2016

Monday, 19 September 2016

"India has overtaken the United States to become the world's second largest Internet market, with 333 million users, trailing China's 721 million. But a new report released today by the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development also confirms that just six nations – including China and India – together account for 55% of the total global population still offline, because of the sheer size of their populations.
While Internet access is approaching saturation in richer nations, connectivity is still not advancing fast enough to help bridge development gaps in areas like education and health care for those in poorer parts of the world, according to the 2016 edition of The State of Broadband report.
Globally, an estimated 3.9 billion people are not using the Internet. But the Commission's new report estimates that, between them, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria account for 55% of all unconnected people, while 20 countries – including the US – account for a full 75% of those not using the Internet. These findings suggest that targeted efforts in just a few key markets could help enormously in redressing the gaping 'digital divide' between those who are online and those still offline."
Source: Press release from the ITU, 15th September 2016

"The NFL just released numbers on last night’s debut of NFL’s Thursday Night Football on Twitter, and they are pretty damn good.
More than 2M people watched the game on Twitter, compared to 48M who watched it on TV. The average user also spent 22 minutes watching on Twitter, compared to 25 minutes watching on TV (which is the only stat that is almost identical).
More specifically, an average of 243,000 people were watching on Twitter at any given time, compared to an average of 15.4M watching at once on CBS and NFL Network (the two networks showing the game on cable).
While the numbers seem low compared to cable, it’s actually a pretty big win for the network, which was able to show investors and the rest of the industry that at least some people will actually watch a live streamed game on Twitter.
But perhaps even more important than the numbers was the very positive reaction almost anyone had that watched the game. Thousands of people (including myself) took to Twitter to share how impressed they were with the quality of the stream – even over LTE or 4G. At certain points Twitter’s stream was even more current than cable, which can lag behind 10 – 15 seconds. Many also commented that the Apple TV viewing experience (which put a timeline next to the stream) was a great way to watch the game."
Source: Techcrunch, 16th September 2016
Update - Viewing numbers are going up - The week after's game got 2.6m

Thursday, 15 September 2016

"Between hordes of people running all over the place in chase of wild Pokémon, various car accidents, and celebrities getting in on the action, you're likely aware that "Pokémon Go" is ridiculously popular.
We didn't know exactly how popular the game was until Wednesday, however, when the game's creator revealed that the game has been downloaded over 500 million times.
For some context, "Pokémon Go" quickly leapt past competitors to become the fastest downloaded app of all time after it launched in early July 2016. The game was the first to hit 10 million in the shortest amount of time, and it grew far beyond that soon after. Its vast popularity has since plateaued, with the game hovering around 30-40 million monthly active users (MAUs) — that's still really impressive, but the white hot excitement has cooled somewhat in the past month or two."

"[V]ideo represents more than 50 percent of BuzzFeed’s total revenue, compared with 15 percent at the end of 2014. In the next two years, BuzzFeed expects that video will generate up to 75 percent of its advertising revenue, according to a person briefed on the company’s operations."
Source; New York Times, 5th September 2016

"The latest insights into the home entertainment industry have been revealed at the BASE MESA Entertainment Summit. As over 300 guests from across the industry representing stakeholders from the UK, Europe and US, gathered at the event which brought together the BASE Category Showcase and the MESA Transforming Home Entertainment Summit under one roof.
Analyst firm Ampere Analysis, which specialises in big-data analytics around home entertainment, pay and multiscreen TV as well as next-generation content distribution, opened the event with analysis covering physical and digital formats, highlighting a £1.3 billion opportunity for film and TV as economic growth outpaces spending on entertainment.
The UK Home Entertainment category was valued at £2.24 billion (€2.65bn) in 2015, performance across 2016 has been steady with premium products performing well. A strong line up of diverse content spanning blockbuster franchises through to special interest comedy is expected to close the year with further growth.
Key programme highlights from across the event included: Luke Bradley-Jones, Director of TV and Content Products at Sky, who in a presentation entitled ‘The Digital Ownership Opportunity’, shared insights into the Sky Store Buy & Keep service and the potential that it sees for digital ownership in the home entertainment market."

Tuesday, 30 August 2016

"The BBC saw a drop of almost 20% in younger viewers to its TV channels in the months after shutting the youth-focused BBC3, according to commercial rivals.
TV marketing body Thinkbox, which has shareholders including ITV, Sky, Channel 4 and UKTV, conducted an analysis of total viewing in the period from March to May.
This time period was chosen to reflect TV viewing after the BBC3 TV channel was closed in February but before the start of Euro 2016 in June, to keep a reasonable year-on-year comparison.
According to the figures viewing across all the BBC’s broadcast TV channels – including viewing up to a week from first broadcast on catch-up services but not devices such as tablets and mobiles – showed that the 16- to 34-year-old audience declined by 18%.
This younger audience was BBC3’s core audience; the BBC Trust had warned the corporation before it moved to take the channel online-only that as many as 750,000 viewers who use no other BBC TV service could be lost.
Commercial TV companies say they have benefited from TV viewing since BBC3’s closure with more youth-focused rivals ITV2 and E4 experiencing uplifts.
ITV2 has been boosted by snapping up shows such as former BBC3 programmes Family Guy and American Dad, and having a strong second series of Love Island."
Source: The Guardian, 22nd August 2016
Related - BBC3 content is over 10% of iPlayer requests

"Futuresource Consulting has published the 12th wave of its Living With Digital consumer survey, which reveals the latest trends in digital entertainment, with a focus on the US, UK, France and Germany but has now expanded to cover Italy, Spain, Australia, Canada, as well as Japan, South Korea and China. It explores topics which highlight consumer preferences for digital video format adoption, influences affecting purchasing decisions and connected device adoption. Also included is an ongoing narrative around pay-TV cord-cutting and the multinational competitive situation between Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
The report highlights the continued growth in SVoD users, amongst both Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, in addition to the rafter of local competitors. There is also encouragement from the growing base of transactional digital video consumers and digital media adaptor owners, together with details on the continued but steady shift away from scheduled TV viewing to non-linear content consumption.
The study highlights that multiple online subscription uptake continues to rise compared with results from the previous wave of research. However, there is high overlap between Netflix and other leading SVoD services in each country, particularly Amazon Prime Video in the US, UK and Germany. Approximately half of Netflix subscribers also use Amazon Prime Video in the UK and US, with 30 per cent of US respondents now using both Amazon Prime Video and Netflix.
“Netflix uptake continues to grow in all countries and although satisfaction levels for Netflix are high, they do vary considerably by country” commented David Sidebottom, Principal Analyst, Media and Entertainment at Futuresource Consulting. “Over half of US respondents say they are extremely satisfied with Netflix, 83 per cent are satisfied or very satisfied; this falls to around two-thirds in France and Germany.”"
Source: Advanced TV, 24th August, 2016

Snapchat viewing
"Almost 50 million people have watched the Olympic Games on Snapchat so far, as broadcasters including NBC and the BBC use the app to reach a millennial audience.
Nearly one in three daily Snapchat users has viewed the clips in Live Stories, showing that the app could challenge other social sites such as Facebook and Twitter for dominance in live events.
The LA-based start-up partnered with broadcasters in seven countries including the US, the UK and Brazil to show stories that include footage from the games and from the crowds in the last 24 hours.
In the first seven days to last Thursday, 49 million unique visitors viewed Olympics content on Snapchat, almost a third of the 150 million daily active users of the app."
Source: Irish Times, 15th August 2016

Over 5bn viewers globally
"Heading up this vast operation is Yannis Exarchos, who runs Olympic Broadcast Services on behalf of the International Olympic Committee, and says that the Rio Games saw internet and on-line viewership as big a factor as [conventional] television. He added that social media helped drive this digital audience to Rio, and took this year’s viewing numbers to a record 5 billion users. Within the first 4 days of competition more people had watched Olympic activity on second screens than during the whole London Games of 2012.
Within 10 days of the start of the Rio Games the on-line streaming numbers had passed the two previous Olympics (London and Sochi). Ratings agency Nielsen said more than 2 billion minutes (33 million hours) were consumed in the US alone in the first 10 days of competition.
Exarchos also said that this year’s experimental Virtual Reality (VR) programming was also a huge hit with viewers, and by Tokyo in 2020 VR and 360-degree material could be a very important factor for consumers and where viewers are at the centre of the action right alongside the athletes."

NBC's US TV viewing fell 15% vs London 2012
"While Mr. Burke's nightmare scenario didn't play out to the letter, the final Nielsen numbers were fairly grim. Through the 17 nights of ceremonies and competition, NBC averaged 26 million viewers and a 14.9 household rating, which marked a 15% decline from the 2012 Summer Games' draw of 31.1 million viewers and a 17.5 rating. (Rio's ratings reflect NBC's Total Audience Delivery, a metric that blends broadcast and cable prime-time deliveries with streaming data.)
More importantly, NBC missed its ratings guarantees by 3.1 points, or 17%, a result that found the network working overtime to make its advertisers whole through Sunday's closing ceremony. Media buyers last week said they were satisfied with NBC's make-good efforts but said that they expected some high-end clients to receive complimentary units in the network's Sunday and Thursday night football packages as a goodwill gesture. (UPDATE: NBC said that all of its Olympics advertisers were made whole within the Games themselves and that the network would not be offering so-called audience deficiency units in the fall."
Source: AdAge, 25th August 2016

NBCU on TV and Snapchat
"NBCUniversal decided to turn over the keys to its Snapchat account to BuzzFeed for the Olympics. The move seems to have paid off to the tune of 35 million viewers over two weeks.
In April, the media giant announced a partnership with Snapchat, under which it would distribute Olympics-related content on the media and messaging app. The content was available in two ways: a pop-up Snapchat Discover channel and multiple daily Live Stories. Across both, NBCU totaled 2.2 billion views and 230 million minutes of consumption, the company said.
With the Discover channel, NBCU gave near-total editorial control to 12 BuzzFeed video producers it had invited down to Rio (NBCUniversal invested $200 million in BuzzFeed last year). “We would talk to them every morning — what we were focusing on and the stories that were emerging, and there would be some coordination that way,” said Gary Zenkel, president of strategy and operations for NBC Sports Group and president of NBC Olympics. “But we did not want to impair their ability to exercise and flex their creative muscles for that day’s edition."
Source: Digiday, 25th August 2016

7.5bn video streams watched in China
"Shanghai-based Alisports, a division of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, said it saw similar success streaming the Olympics in China through a partnership with online video hub Youku Tudou.
A total of 7.5 billion streams were watched by Olympics fans in China, according to newly released figures from Alisports.
Alisports last month had announced a licensing agreement with Chinese state-owned CCTV to stream the Rio Olympics via Youku, which is also owned by Alibaba, albeit with a 30-minute delay to CCTV’s own broadcast. About 380 million viewers logged on to watch, Alisports said. That’s almost half the size of the traditional television audience of 793 million claimed by CCTV."

Monday, 22 August 2016

"BBC Sport cemented its position as the number one digital destination for sport as record numbers accessed digital services. This week has been the biggest ever week for BBC Sport online with 58.2m global unique browsers following the action from the Rio Olympics, the return of the Premier League and England’s Test match v Pakistan from around the world.
The new seven-day record for BBC Sport digital traffic smashes the previous record of 41.4m set during the first week of Euro 2016. Of the 58.2m unique browsers, 40.3m came from the UK, setting another personal best for the BBC.
And like many of the Olympians competing in Rio, BBC Sport beat its own record for daily traffic which stood at 14.6m unique browsers from the day England faced Wales at Euro 2016, five times since the start of the Games. It now stands at 19m for Super Sunday as fans followed Team GB’s historic medal haul.Mobile
Audiences have been glued to the action on their mobile devices throughout the Games and the BBC Sport mobile app had its biggest ever week with 4.4m unique browsers. Sunday was a record day for mobile audiences overall too, with 2.7m browsers in the app contributing to 8.4m unique browsers overall, beating the previous record of 6.3m.Personal
The opening week of the Games has also seen people personalise the BBC Sport digital service more than ever before, a record 347k unique browsers visited the ‘My Sport’ area of the website, with over 500k topics followed.Online Video
An enormous 81.2m have accessed video clips, catch-up services and watched live streams across BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer since the start of the Games, with audiences using the digital service to watch both live and on-demand.
Team GB’s success has also led to a record week for the BBC Sport app on Connected TV with 1.74m browsers and an all-time high of 1.67m using the BBC’s Red Button+ service."
Source: BBC Media Centre, 15th August 2016

Monday, 8 August 2016

"While bugs and feature complaints are still causing a decent amount of negativity among users, Pokémon Go continues its upward trajectory in terms of overall revenue. App analytics platform Sensor Tower reveals that the game now have over $200 million in net revenue from players based on their estimates.
The spending frenzy in Go compares favorably to in-game revenue generated by other huge in-app purchase-driven games, according to data also tracked by the firm. Pokémon’s star power has helped it nearly double the first month revenue of Clash Royale, the other big in-app star this year. And it’s made almost four times as much as Candy Crush Soda Saga managed during its first 30 days of availability."

"Apple’s smartphone marketshare has halved from 4 percent to just 2 percent in India during the past year. Apple iOS will need to reduce iPhone pricing to cheaper levels, attract more operator subsidies and enlarge its retail presence through Apple stores or online channels if it wants to regrow significantly in the future.
Total smartphone shipments in India grew a healthy 19 percent annually from 25.8 million units in Q2 2015 to 30.7 million in Q2 2016. India is currently the world’s third largest smartphone market, after China and the US. India is growing quickly due to low smartphone penetration rates, an expanding middle class with more disposable income, and intense competition among major vendors, retailers and operators.
Android shipped 29.8 million smartphones in India in Q2 2016, growing an impressive 28 percent annually from 23.2 million units in Q2 2015. Android maintained first position across India with a record 97 percent OS share for the quarter, up from 90 percent a year ago."
Source: Next Big What, 5th August 2016

"Despite massive disruption and upheaval over nearly two decades, the recorded music industry remains highly concentrated at the top. According to data released by independent label group WIN, an astounding 62.4 percent of all music sold, downloaded, and streamed worldwide comes from just three major labels, in 2016. In the United States, that figure is 64%, and a lopsided 77% in the UK.
The three major labels — Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group — are currently enjoying a surge in streaming revenues from companies like Spotify and Apple Music. Spotify and other streaming services, in turn, are paying the greatest percentage of their royalties to the majors. According to some estimates, the ‘Big Three’ command more than 80% of streaming royalties from Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, and others."
Source: Digital Music News, 3rd August 2016

"Ofcom’s Communications Market Report 2016 reveals how our reliance on the internet is affecting people’s personal and working lives, leading many to seek time away from the web to spend time with friends and family.
It finds that one in three adult internet users (34%), equivalent to 15 million people in the UK, has sought a period of time offline, with one in ten (11%) doing so in the last week alone.
Of these digital down-timers, 25% spent up to a day internet-free; 20% took up to a week off; and 5% went web-free for up to a whole month.
Many people found their time offline to be a positive experience: a third (33%) said they felt more productive, 27% found it liberating, while a quarter (25%) enjoyed life more. However, 16% experienced a ‘fear of missing out’ (‘FOMO’) while on the web wagon, 15% felt lost and 14% ‘cut-off’.
Ofcom’s report shows that faster internet access is more widely available than ever before, with take-up of superfast broadband2 and 4G on the increase.
With people better connected than ever before, they can spend more time doing what they love online – such as watching the latest on-demand series, or chatting with friends and family via instant messaging services, both of which have seen a recent surge in popularity.
Three in four internet users (75%) consider the web ‘important’ to their daily lives. Nearly eight in 10 (78%) agree it helps keep them up-to-date about current affairs and social issues, while almost two thirds (63%) credit it with inspiring them to try new things such as travel destinations, restaurants, recipes or entertainment.
As a result of the internet’s importance in many people’s daily lives, adult users in the UK currently spend an average of one day per week (25 hours) online; 42% say they go online or check apps more than 10 times a day, while around one in 10 (11%) access the internet more than 50 times daily.
Most internet users (59%) even consider themselves ‘hooked’ on their connected device – while a third (34%) admit they find it difficult to disconnect."

Thursday, 28 July 2016

From their earnings release:
"Second Quarter 2016 Operational Highlights
Daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 1.13 billion on average for June 2016, an increase of 17% year-over-year.
Mobile DAUs – Mobile DAUs were 1.03 billion on average for June 2016, an increase of 22% year-over-year.
Monthly active users (MAUs) – MAUs were 1.71 billion as of June 30, 2016, an increase of 15% year-over-year.
Mobile MAUs – Mobile MAUs were 1.57 billion as of June 30, 2016, an increase of 20% year-over-year.Second Quarter 2016 Other Financial Highlights
Mobile advertising revenue – Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 84% of advertising revenue for the second quarter of 2016, up from approximately 76% of advertising revenue in the second quarter of 2015.
Capital expenditures – Capital expenditures for the second quarter of 2016 were $995 million.
Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities – Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $23.29 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2016."
Source: Press release from Facebook, 27th July 2016

"At an employee meeting in Cupertino this morning, CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple recently sold the billionth iPhone.
"iPhone has become one of the most important, world-changing and successful products in history. It's become more than a constant companion. iPhone is truly an essential part of our daily life and enables much of what we do throughout the day," said Cook. “Last week we passed another major milestone when we sold the billionth iPhone. We never set out to make the most, but we’ve always set out to make the best products that make a difference. Thank you to everyone at Apple for helping change the world every day.""

"It took Uber six years to complete a billion rides around Christmas 2015. Now, just six months later, the company has announced that they have completed their two-billionth ride.
Six months is 180 days, meaning the company was providing an average of 5.5 million rides a day, or 230,000 an hour to hit a billion rides in six months.
Even crazier – instead of one person completing the lucky trip that pushes the company past the two billion mark, there were 147 rides that all tied for the being the two-billionth trip.
All 147 rides literally started their trip the exact same second – at 4:16 AM GMT on Saturday, June 18. Even cooler – these 147 trips simultaneously started in 16 different countries on five continents.
As their reward for hitting the milestone, all 147 riders and drivers will receive $450 – since Uber is now in 450 cities around the world. This pales in comparison to the year of free rides (up to £10,000) gifted to the rider who hit one billion rides for the company, but it’s understandable that the prize was decreased considering there are now 147 winners."

[Experian split the UK into 3 classifications]
"Digital Dawdlers
Around 7.5 million (15.6 per cent of the population) people are being left behind in the digital revolution, either because of old age and a lack of know-how or interest in new technology, or by the limited or slow provision of broadband in the places where they live. Locations in the far reaches of Scotland feature highly in this group, alongside rural locations and seaside towns such Scarborough, Boston and Lowestoft.
Digital Devotees
About a third of people in the UK (32.4 per cent) fall into the leading edge users of digital technology. They have the most devices, spend more time on-line and use digital services for the widest range of activities. They are most at home in the digital world and would find it extremely hard to do without digital technology. There is a clear urban bias in evidence here. Locations in this group are dominated by London boroughs, as well as other metropolitan areas across the UK, including Manchester and Birmingham.
Day-to-Day Doers
About half of the population (52 per cent) are defined as practical day-to-day users of the internet and digital services. Their use is characterised less by enthusiasm for the latest technology and the must have gadget, and more by a set of practical uses that benefit them on a daily basis. This includes search, paying bills, entertainment and being active on social media and other forums. Locations that feature highly in this group include suburban areas and commuter towns, such as Epsom, Orpington and Altrincham."
Source: Data from Experian, reported by Advanced Television,. 19th July 2016

"According to just-released GfK MRI research, binge viewing is more than mainstream; it is prevalent, with almost 6 in 10 (57 per cent) TV viewers saying they have regularly watched three or more episodes of the same show in one sitting – whether that be via streaming, DVR, VoD or TV marathons.
Regular binge viewing includes
• 14 per cent “usually – binge all or most of the time”
• 18 per cent “frequently – binge more than half the time”
• 25 per cent “sometimes – binge about half the time”
Asked to think up a new term for their behaviour, regular bingers playfully gravitate to the term extreme viewing – and overall, 73 per cent of regular bingers report having a positive view of their binge viewing habits. Two out of three (77 per cent) say it is “so fun to binge watch, I have a hard time stopping,” and roughly half (48 per cent) feel that binge viewing keeps them “up to date/in the know.”"
Source: Data from GfK MRI, reported by Advanced Television, 21st July 2016

"comScore conducted research to examine the branding effectiveness of digital display and video ads appearing on Digital Content Next (DCN) member sites, a group of brand name media generally considered to be “premium publishers,” as compared to other publishers. The research demonstrates that premium publisher do drive higher brand lift effectiveness due in large part to the ‘halo effect’ of the contextual environment in which ads are seen.
Key findings from the study can be summarized as follows:
Display and video ads on DCN premium publisher sites had an average of 67% higher brand lift than non-DCN publishers, confirming that premium sites deliver premium performance.
Premium publishers are more than 3x more effective in driving mid-funnel brand lift metrics, such as favorability, consideration and intent to recommend.
Premium publisher effectiveness is driven in part by higher viewability rates which include lower levels of invalid traffic."

Monday, 25 July 2016

"iPhone is so popular and mature the narrative has been switching from how to build up the device as a platform to all the platforms that can be built on the device — and the iOS software that powers it.
Look no further than Pokemon Go, which Apple recently told me had set a new App Store record, scoring more downloads in its first week than any other app in store history."

"Celebrity women are absolutely dominating social media when it comes to personal branding nowadays, and Selena Gomez is the queen bee of digital buzz. According to measurement company D'Marie Analytics, the top six social influencers are either female pop stars like Gomez, Rihanna, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift—or their last name is Jenner, and first name is either Kendall or Kylie.
Gomez currently stands in the No. 1 slot and, per D'Marie, is worth $550,000 per social media post when the messaging appears across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. That's $300,000 more than the analytics company said Kendall Jenner, Gomez, Swift and Cara Delevingne could probably charge last December.
Frank Spadafora, CEO of D'Marie Group, described the methodology behind Gomez's $550,000 figure: "The rate-per-post is her 'ad equivalent' value per post across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This may be different than how much she is actually getting paid when participating in social media campaigns. That is up to negotiations between her agents and the brands. This valuation is based on D'Marie's algorithm which measures 56 metrics including followers, post frequency, engagement, quality of post, click-thru and potential to create sales conversions from her social content."

Based on Quettra’s data, we can see that the average app loses 77% of its DAUs within the first 3 days after the install. Within 30 days, it’s lost 90% of DAUs.2 Within 90 days, it’s over 95%. Stunning. The other way to say this is that the average app mostly loses its entire userbase within a few months, which is why of the >1.5 million apps in the Google Play store, only a few thousand sustain meaningful traffic.
Source: Data from Quettra, reported by Andrew Chen, July 2016

Thursday, 21 July 2016

"Community milestone: 1 billion people now use Messenger every month!
Thanks to everyone in our community who has been a part of this. And thanks to everyone on the Messenger team -- celebrating in the video below.
There's a lot more to do -- and a lot more coming soon -- but this is another step on the journey to connect the world."
Source: Post from Mark Zuckerberg, 20th July 2016

Monday, 18 July 2016

"On Wednesday, Facebook caused quite a stir among journalists and news companies when it acknowledged that it was changing the mix of material Facebook users would see in their News Feeds. The company said it was going more back toward its roots, favoring updates from friends and families, and showing less news.This chart from Statista shows why this is such a big deal. Facebook is now the number-one source of referrals to news sites, according to January-February 2016 data from Parse.ly, a digital media analytics provider. Google is right behind it, and the two of them together provide almost 80% of all traffic to news sites. If you broaden the categories beyond specific brands, 86% of traffic comes from social (including sources like Twitter) and search (Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others)."

"Findings from market and consumer information firm GfK show that US TV households are embracing alternatives to cable and satellite reception. Levels of broadcast-only reception and Internet-only video subscriptions have both risen over the past year, with fully one-quarter (25 per cent) of all US TV households now going without cable and satellite reception.
The research, from GfK’s 2016 Ownership and Trend Report from The Home Technology Monitor, shows that 17 per cent of US TV households now rely on broadcast-only (a.k.a. ‘over-the-air’ or OTA) reception, up from 15 per cent in 2015. Another 6 per cent say they only use Internet services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or YouTube and do not have traditional broadcast or pay-TV reception at all; this compares with 4 per cent a year ago.
TV households with a resident between 18 and 34 years old are much more likely to be opting for alternatives to cable and satellite; 22 per cent of these homes are using broadcast-only reception (versus 17 per cent of all US households), and 13 per cent are only watching an Internet service on their TV sets (versus 6 per cent of all TV homes). Overall, 38 per cent of 18-to-34 households rely on some kind of alternative TV reception or video source, versus 25 per cent of all homes."

"The second annual Prime Day was the biggest day ever for Amazon. Amazon today announced customer orders surpassed Prime Day 2015 by more than 60% worldwide and more than 50% in the U.S. It was also the biggest day ever for Amazon devices globally and record Prime Day for each Amazon device category including Fire TV, Fire tablets, Kindle e-readers and Alexa-enabled devices. Prime Day was a great savings day too – members globally saved more than double on deals over Prime Day 2015.
This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160713005901/en/
“Prime itself is the best deal in the history of shopping, and Prime Day was created as a special benefit exclusively for our Prime members,” said Greg Greeley, Vice President, Amazon Prime. “We want to thank our tens of millions of members around the world for making this the biggest day in the history of Amazon. We hope you had as much fun as we did. After yesterday’s results, we’ll definitely be doing this again.”
Prime Day 2016 highlights globally:
Sold over 2.5x more Amazon Fire TV devices compared to Prime Day last year – Fire TV Stick was the best-selling Amazon device.
More than two million toys and more than one million pairs of shoes were purchased by customers on Prime Day 2016.
More than 90,000 TVs were purchased on Prime Day 2016.
Hundreds of thousands of Kindle e-readers sold on Prime Day.
Prime member orders on the Amazon app surpassed Prime Day 2015 mobile app orders by more than 2x.
More than a million customers used the Amazon app for the first time on Prime Day to shop and to watch-a-deal.
The Prime Photos sweepstakes had two million submissions worldwide during the lead-up to Prime Day, the winner will be randomly selected on or about July 14.
Prime Day 2016 highlights from the U.S.:
Amazon devices were up over 3x compared to Prime Day last year.
Biggest day ever for Amazon Echo – up over 2.5x compared to previous record day.
The most popular Amazon Dash Button brands purchased on Prime Day were Cascade, Charmin and Tide.
Members purchased over 215,000 Instant Pot 7-in-1 Multi-Functional Pressure Cookers.
Members purchased over 200,000 headphones.
Members purchased over 24,000 Double Hammocks by Vivere.
Members purchased over 23,000 iRobot Roomba 614 Vacuum Cleaning Robots.
Members purchased over 14,000 Lenovo laptops.
Members purchased on average one Alexa-exclusive deal per second during Prime Day using their voice.
Prime members had exclusive access to deals on top rated TV series and blockbuster movies to rent or purchase and instantly stream on the Amazon Video app on TVs, mobile devices, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire tablets, or online – the top three Prime Day deal titles purchased or rented were: Deadpool, Kung Fu Panda 3 and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.
The most selected Audible audiobook on Prime Day was A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1."
Source: Press release from Amazon, 13th July 2016

"Many products seem fascinating to geeks and techies but fail to catch on with wider audiences, from dual-booting smartphones to smart blowdryers. However, the Amazon Echo seems to be a real hit, with a new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimating the retail giant has sold 3 million of the smart speakers.
The Amazon Echo, which uses the cloud-based AI Alexa to answer queries, control smart home devices and play games with users, has seen plenty of support from Amazon, with new abilities added almost every week. But consumers seem to have seen the value as well."

Key points -
“The average user engaged in 76 separate phone sessions a day. Heavy users (the top 10%) averaged 132 sessions a day.
Phone screen time was 2.42 hours for the average user, and 3.75 hours for the heavy user. That was time spent on everything from typing texts, swiping on Tinder, turning Kindle pages, and scrolling in Facebook.
People tapped, swiped and clicked a whopping 2,617 times each day, on average.
Nearly half of touches were guided by apps made by Alphabet and Zuckerberg. The other half were split among the other 700+ apps.”

Source - Analysis from dscout, 16th June 2016
Methodology:
"dscout’s web-based research platform pairs with a smartphone app to capture in-the-moment behaviors. For this study, we recruited a demographically diverse sample of 94 Android users from our pool of more than 100,000 participants. Then we built a supplementary smartphone tool to track every user’s interaction across 5 days, 24 hours a day.
And by every interaction, we mean every tap, type, swipe and click. We’re calling them touches."

Monday, 4 July 2016

"Swedish music streaming service Spotify said on Monday its user base had grown to 100 million, up from 75 million previously, as it pushed into new markets and despite competition from the likes of Apple Music.
Spotify has the music streaming industry's biggest paid subscriber base, with 30 million users paying to listen, but the vast majority still tune in for free with commercial breaks.
Competition is fierce with Apple Music launched just last year and already claiming 13 million paid users while Alphabet's Google competes with Google Music and Youtube.
Sources have told Reuters that Amazon.com Inc is preparing its own standalone service.
Spotify, founded in 2006, pays more than 80 percent of its revenue to record labels and artists and has not yet shown a profit as it spends to grow internationally.
Last year, it made an operating loss of 184.5 million euros ($209 million), widening from 165.1 million in 2014."

"Five times as many people now use Instagram as did in 2013. But despite that strong growth, Instagram has seen a worrisome trend. Between 2013 and 2015, the number of photos shared on average by each Instagram user fell, said two people briefed on the app’s internal data.
And just as its parent Facebook has been trying to reverse a drop in how much people share about their lives on the social network, Instagram has to figure out how to deal with the decline in “sharing” on its service. Otherwise over time people may gradually visit Instagram less and gravitate to rival apps, particularly Snapchat, which in the past year or two has gotten much more buzz than Instagram."

"We explored the numbers of app downloads from over 100 Google and Apple app stores across the globe in partnership with Priori Data, and drew data from StatCounter’s network of over 3 million Web sites.
Here are the key findings of our research:
At least 419 million people (22% of the world’s 1.9 billion smartphone users) are blocking ads on the mobile web.
Both mobile web and in-app ads can now be blocked.
As of March 2016 an estimated 408 million people are actively using mobile adblocking browsers (i.e., a mobile browser that blocks ads by default).
As of March 2016 there are 159 million users of mobile adblocking browsers in China, 122 million in India, and 38 million in Indonesia.
As of March 2016 in Europe and North America, there were 14 million monthly active users of mobile adblocking browsers.
A further 4.9 million content blocking and in-app adblocking apps were downloaded from the app stores in Europe and North America since September 2014.
20% of the world’s smartphone users are using mobile adblocking browsers, which are mobile browsers that block ads by default. This is an order of magnitude greater than many had believed."

Friday, 1 July 2016

"BBC Online attracted record breaking digital figures for the home nations Euro 2016 clash between England and Wales on June 16th with 2.3 million unique browsers watching online, more than double the previous record, while a peak audience of 9.3 million million people (73 per cent share) tuned in on BBC One.
An all-time high audience of 14.6 million unique global browsers visited the BBC Sport website on the day to follow coverage of Euro 2016, including Northern Ireland’s match against Ukraine. This breaks the previous record of 13.6 million browsers set on the final day of the 2015-16 Premier League season."
Source: Advanced Television, 17th June 2016

"An important milestone was passed in early 2016: more than half of TV sets shipped globally in first quarter 2016 were smart TVs. The acceleration in the uptake of internet-connected TVs was led by China, where four out of five TV sets shipped with smart functionality. Meanwhile, despite a seasonally quiet quarter, 56 per cent of North American TV shipments were smart TVs, according to IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), the leading global source of critical information and insight.
“It is a remarkable result,” said Paul Gray, principal analyst for IHS Technology. “China and North America continue to experience growth in the share of smart TVs, and the feature is now established in entry-level products.”"

"Speaking at the annual Nielsen Consumer 360 event, the Council for Research Excellence (CRE) unveiled findings from a new platform usage study that show TV outperforming computer, smartphone and tablet in viewer ad attention and recall.
The study, conducted by Hub Entertainment Research, was designed to compare viewing of TV shows and advertising across screens to determine whether engagement and recall differ among platforms, and to identify the drivers that have the greatest impact on the viewing experience.
Key findings include:
Attention to advertising and ad recall, two important measures of advertising engagement, are similar among viewers using computer, smartphone and tablet, but higher among those watching a TV set. For ad recall, 62 per cent of TV viewers were able to recall half or more advertisers, followed by tablet (47 per cent), smartphone (46 per cent) and computer (45 per cent). For attentiveness, 29 per cent of participants rated TV an 8-10 on a 10-point scale where 10 means complete attention, ahead of smartphone (23 per cent), computer (20 per cent) and tablet (17 per cent).
Enjoyment, a measure of programme engagement, was high across all platforms but especially so among smartphone viewers.
Platform experience is related to actual screen size. Independent of other factors, the viewing experience was significantly more positive among TV set viewers. 89 per cent of participants rated TV an 8-10 on a 10-point scale for enjoyment, followed by tablet (63 per cent), computer (54 per cent) and smartphone (53 per cent).
Multi-tasking negatively impacts engagement with ads (sponsor recall) but not with show (plot recall). In addition, the study found that very little multi-tasking behaviour (7-11 per cent, depending on the platform) during ads was related to the brands featured in the ads themselves."

"The bulk of spending by brands on digital advertising is going to Google and Facebook. Combined, they accounted for 75 per cent of all new online ad spending in 2015, according to the Internet Trends report published this month by Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the US venture capital fund. In the US, 85 cents of every new dollar spent on digital went to the two companies in the first quarter of 2016.
This matters because digital is fast becoming advertising’s biggest source of revenue. It will eclipse television in the US next year , according to eMarketer, the research firm, with the lion’s share likely to go to the digital duopoly of Facebook and Google. Executives in Cannes put a brave face on what this might mean for their industry but the consequences of two companies becoming the gatekeepers for most digital advertising are profound."
Source: FT, 23rd June 2016

Tuesday, 28 June 2016

"Instagram passed 500 million users, and growth is accelerating as the photo sharing app clears a hurdle that has stalled competitors.
The most recent 100 million users joined up faster than the previous 100 million, indicating the app owned by Facebook Inc. won't be hindered any time soon by the growth plateau that plagues competitor Twitter Inc. Instagram said daily active users have reached 300 million. That's about double what Snapchat Inc. and Twitter see.
Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for about $750 million. Since then, the photo network has grown exponentially due to the ease of sharing images—a medium that can cross language barriers and create connections between people even without formal social ties. About 80 percent of Instagram's users come from outside of the U.S.
Instagram was able to rely on the world's largest social network to assist growth, while tapping into Facebook's advertisers to start ramping up its business. In the last year, Instagram started focusing on being a destination for photos and video from events."